Monday, May 12, 2014

The need for speed?

A friend recently blogged about the Indian elections and wrote in his
post about a tweet from the Aam Admi Party’s Somnath Bharti, in
frustration as he wasn’t able to upload a video of his party workers
being beaten up in Amethi, that he would have done so if the broadband
would have been better. It struck my friend as funny, at the time, but
it struck me as very telling. Amethi could be considered one of India’s
VIP constituencies, a stronghold of the Gandhi family. Even an offhand
comment about the inadequacy of the quality of broadband exposes how far
away India really is from not just proving the internet to its people,
but providing quality access. It also made me wonder how governments of
the day blame YouTube for their communal law and order problems, given
that YouTube is painfully slow to load in New Delhi itself most of the
time – but I digress.

If TV adverts were anything to go by, India is nodding along to “what
an Idea sirjee” and a plethora of celebrities are using 3G to post
silly videos of each other. Urban youth have no concerns outside
Facebook and Twitter, and everyone seems to have only content to create,
with the speed of broadband a given.

And then there is the mainstream media which reports on what
“Twitter” is saying about any given subject, and either feeds off gossip
and opinions on the social media platform or then tries to lead the
discussion over there by asking its patrons to tweet using hashtags.
Just to put it in context, India’s Twitter base is roughly 33 million, which is 2.75% of India’s entire population.

And, as far as the two national parties go, the BJP manifesto
speaks of an innovative and technology driven society that is globally
competitive. It mentions e-government at some length. The Congress manifesto
too, talks of connecting every village in India with broadband in three
years to open ‘vast new opportunities’, but no specific employment
opportunities in urban and sei-urban areas. Currently, Karnataka, which
boasts of India’s IT hub Bangalore, is under a Congress government. On
another note, the Aam Aadmi Party,
India’s first urban underdog political party talks about using
information technology to promote transparency and reduce corruption in
government. There is no other specific reference to the potential of the
internet in India.

In fact, outside official lines in party mandates (and the most in
the BJP’s), this election season has slowly seen the campaigns devolve
from talk of development to the usual caste and communal equations.
Therefore, it might be pertinent for them to be reminded about what is
at stake right for the country in the coming years.

The numbers speak for themselves, released by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India.
As of February 2014, the number of broadband subscribers in India was
14.80 million, about 1.71% up from the previous month. Growing even more
rapidly are the number of users access the internet through their
mobiles or dongles, which stood at 42.81 million in February 2014, a
growth of 2.05% from January 2014. The top five wired broadband
providers in India are BSNL (9.98 million), Bharti (1.39 million), MTNL
(1.10 million), YOU Broadband (0.37 million) and Beam Telecom (0.37
million). As for the top wireless broadband service providers, there is
Bharti (10.60 million), Reliance (6.98 million), Idea (6.50 million),
BSNL (6.38 million) and Vodafone (6.14 million).

Studies analyze the potential of the internet not just in social
terms, but economic. A McKinsey report published in December 2013 called
“Online and Upcoming: The Internet’s Impact on India” reveals that the
Internet contributes 1.6% of India’s GDP, roughly $30 billion. The
report says this could grow to 2.8 to 3.3% by 2015 if India achieves its
potential for growth with respect to the number of Internet users and
Internet technology-related consumption and investment. However,
according to a joint report by KPMG and ASSOCHAM,
India is currently losing about 70% of its new business in the Business
Process Outsourcing (BPO) industry to competitors like Philippines and
Eastern Europe. This is in part because of rising costs in bigger
metros, and the lack of English speaking employees. The solution lies
not just in vocational training schemes but also in moving these offices
to tier 2 and tier 3 cities. Not taking swift action could cost
approximately $30 billion in foreign exchange earnings.

In country that ranks 123 in the world when it comes to average
broadband connection speed and 125 in average peak connection speed,
according to the ‘State of the Internet’
report by Akamai, this is a serious challenge. For example, in India, a
broadband leader like Airtel offers speeds from 1 Mbps up to a maximum
of 100 Mbps (on fiber based broadband network in urban Delhi) while in
Guna,(a small town in MP), the range of offered broadband speed is from
512 kbps to 2 Mbps. In rural areas, BSNL offers speeds of 512 kbps to 2
mbps. However, experts say that the difference between actual and
promised speed varies a lot from place to place. The actual speed could
range from 90% but go as low was 20% of what is advertised. This is
dependent on the network and the customer premise equipment. For all
this to improve, a sense of urgency needs to enter the Indian market. As
Rajan Anandan, Managing Director of Google India, said in a recent
interview, “nobody in the world except India defines 512 kbps as broadband.” Late in 2013, the government of India cleared aproposal
to provide three internet connections and one wi-fi hotspot in each of
the 2.5 lakh gram panchayats spread across the country. The project
should be completed by March 2016. The plan is to provide 100 Mbps
broadband speeds to all the gram panchayats in the country.

In terms of mobile broadband, ‘the next big thing’ according to
numbers, there is still a while to go. Telecom providers are
aggressively offering 3G services and the use of smartphone in India is
on the rise. However, following complaints about the quality of service,
the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) has started a consultation process for setting minimum download speeds of 1Mbps for 3G connections and 56Kbps for 2G connections.

Ultimately, both the spread and speed of the internet in India will
have a direct impact on India’s economy. But that’s not all. Somnath
Bharti and million others will be able to upload videos and tweet – be
they of political relevance or not. India’s e-government schemes will
find faster delivery of services. Sectors like e-commerce will be able
to grow. And India’s IT and ITES sectors, which contribute up to 9% of
the country’s GDP, will also remain in the race to be a sure avenue for
employment and income generation.